


no one here to save me (and you're the only thing i know)

by secretlyhuman



Series: breathe [3]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Major Character Injury, Other characters are mentioned but its basically just Jake and amy, Sadness, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretlyhuman/pseuds/secretlyhuman
Summary: On the twelfth of November almost a year after she left Amy Santiago came home to an empty apartment and a broken Jake Peralta. She'd left and he might be dying, somewhere deep inside her she wondered how she could ever fix any of it.





	no one here to save me (and you're the only thing i know)

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here, i finally finished this. Originally i was going to finish this as like a reward to myself after finishing something else but the other thing is saved in my drafts as the high school au from hell and I haven't worked on it in ages so i figured it was time to come back to this. 
> 
> As ever thanks for reading and for sticking with this until the end.

On the twelfth of November almost a year after she left Amy Santiago came home to an empty apartment and a broken Jake Peralta.The day she got back she’d got the call. He was shot, almost dead. Images of him bleeding out, lifeless on the street filled her mind and all the pain of the last year had rushed through her until it was nearly all too much.

She'd left and he might be dying, somewhere deep inside her she wondered how she could ever fix any of it.

She returned to a place without air, they tell her he’s dying yet expect her to sign the forms they need like nothings wrong and when they’re all done she tears away from them. She drives through the city faster than she ever has because she needs to be there, every time she blinks she sees bullets flying and Jake bruised and bloody and dying. She may never forgive herself for the past year but she never thought it would end like this.

Brooklyn Methodist looks the same as it always does, it shouldn’t, she thinks not when he’s there. Not when he could be dying. Rain starts to fall in heavy drops and in the time it takes to walk from her car to the door she's soaked and shivering. Her muscles ache from the last week and his mind fills her name until she’s not sure how she’d not screaming it.

She sees the squad for the first time in a year and they all look so broken, smaller than ever before. On seeing her Rosa stands and snarls.

“What are you doing here? You left us. You left him.” This must be what a broken heart feels like she thinks and she must be crying because she can’t quite see anymore and when did her knees hit the ground? Vaguely she hears the captain tell someone to stand down but she doesn’t think it matters anymore because her family is falling apart right in front of her eyes.

Strong hands pull her up but she’s still crying except now it’s not just tears it’s sobs she can’t control. The air has the crisp, clear smell of a medical facility and for all she knows Jake is still bleeding out. (He could be dead and she wouldn't even know it.)

“Amy. Amy look at me.” Terry’s voice cuts through her self pity. Even though his voice is a little rougher than normal, edged with fear at what comes next, it still feels a little like coming home. “I don’t know what’s happening but whatever it is I forgive you.” From there Terry pulled her into a smothering hug, the kind that starts to knit broken pieces back together.

The minutes and hours dripped past in the ICU waiting room. She makes promise after promise with some higher power of all the things she would do if she could just see Jake Peralta one last time. She still remembers the last time they kissed in crystalline detail and it almost feels like it’s shattering in front of her because none of that will matter if he dies.

She's not sure how long they wait for but it feels longer than any time before, like there wasn’t a time when she wasn’t in this waiting room. Didn’t have a plastic chair cutting into the backs of her legs or the prickling of tears behind her eyes.

The doctor that walks in is a tall, tired looking women. Amy wonders if she knows that Jake is too important to die, that if he does then Amy will fight to her own death to bring him back. Her nails bite into her palms and it grounds her into this room filled with the pieces of her family. She thinks she hears the doctor say alive and it’s like she gets a taste of what it feels like to breath again.

…

When Jake wakes up two weeks later he thinks he must be dead, must be seeing ghost, because standing by his bed is a shadow who looks exactly like Amy Santiago. She’s thinner than he remembers, looks hollowed out. Her eyes are dull and her knuckles are stabbed over and he doesn’t believe it’s really her.

She left and never came back a year ago so she must be dead to.

Pain washes over him in waves from the hole in his chest and suddenly it all sense is ripped away until all that’s left is the hurt. He thinks he might be screaming but he isn't sure. The ghost of the women he loves started to cry and he thinks he is too. He didn't think dying would hurt this much.

…

It's another week before he wakes up again and when he does the ghost is gone. He's not sure that makes it better, that maybe she just came back to say goodbye before running away again. A year gone by and he still isn't over her. Still doesn't know how she could leave him.

…

Amy isn't sure she can watch him die so she throws herself into work at the precinct then goes to the gym each night. She mostly boxes, a skill she picked up while undercover and she fights until her knuckles bleed and she's so tired she can hardly stand.

She thought coming back would be better but maybe she should have kept running.

…

He comes back to the Nine Nine two months after she does and he’s tied to his desk lest he rip open the wounds in his broken body. He switches desks with Rosa so he doesn’t have to look at her and she understands but it stings. She maps the ways he's changed in her absence and the aftermath. He's smaller a shell of the man she used to know. He doesn't laugh as much or smile as wide and she hates herself for being part of the reason why.

Terry and Holt forgive her but the rest don't and she doesn't either. All the years of being the most eloquent and she can't find the words to capture the apology she needs to make. He's moved out of there apartment and it doesn't feel like home without the Die Hard poster above the T.V or his brand of beer in the fridge.

…

Seeing her all the time hurts more than he thought it would.

…

He corners her in the evidence locker and memories of their first (real) kiss burn through him, staining him with the memory of her lips on his and her hands on his chest.

“Santiago, we need to talk.” His voice is already scratchy with tears and he just prays that they haven't spoken in so long that she doesn't notice. (She does and it breaks her heart that she is doing this to him.) She doesn't speak, just nods in response.

“Santia- Ames, why did you leave?” He’s staring at the ceiling now so she can't see the tears spilling down his cheeks. He’s not looking at the ones that fall down hers at the use of the nickname she hasn't heard in so long.

“Vice made me for your safety and mine.” Her voice is so quiet and small he almost forgives her right there despite all the pain of the last year. “I get it if you never want to see me again but I'm so sorry Jake.”

“No, I don't think you do get it Ames, you're it for me and you left when you promised you wouldn't.” He’s shouting now and shaking from all the adrenaline pouring through him. She is too but he's too angry to care, after all this time they are still the same.

…

Amy finds him crying out in the biting January wind, standing alone on their roof. The stakeout feels like a lifetime ago and she wishes she could go back to that moment and tell her past self that no job is worth losing Jake Peralta. Her hand closes around the box in her pocket and not for the last time she wonders if she's making the right choice.

“I was going to propose.” The words tear out of her throat and he jumps at the interruption. “I had it all planned, we were gonna come back here and I was going to get down on one knee and we were going to be so fucking happy.”

He turns to look at her, to take it all in. Their cheeks are red from the cold and he can't feel his hands despite having jammed them into his pockets.

“I would have said yes.” The words come out before he can stop them and then she's down on one knee and there's a small velvet box in her hands and he’s pretty sure he might still be dead because she left. He's not sure when his life got so complicated and he wishes he could back to the roof and tell himself to kiss her while he has the chance.

“Jake, I know I screwed up and I don't expect you to forgive me. Hell, I hardly know if I can forgive myself but say yes and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”

He’s crying again. He never used to cry. What has she done to him?

“I don’t know if I can say yes.”

“Then don't, but please, just don't say no.” He reaches out to her and helps her from the ground pulling her into his arms. Then his mouths on hers and it’s been over a year but he doesn’t think kissing Amy Santiago is ever something he could forget how to do. The ring box is jammed awkwardly between them and he doesn't care because it feels like he's breathing again for the first time since she left.

She pulls away and he’s laughing at how messed up it all got and how it doesn’t matter because he doesn't think he'd be kissing her if they were both dead and it's like somehow all the colours are a little bit brighter again.

…

They spend the night on his (their) couch kissing and crying and trying to fill all their broken spaces. The engagement ring is heavy on his finger. Amy wonders how she ever thought she could live in a world where she didn't love Jake Peralta. For the first time since she left it feels like they are healing.

**Author's Note:**

> It feels weird that this is over after so long. I might come back and add a fourth epilogue/ wedding part but I'm not promising anything.


End file.
